Lot of hard work went up in smoke today

For the past 40 years or so I've been saving lumber out of buildings I've torn down. Built a two tiered rack that was maybe 18' long by 14' wide in the old machine shed to store it. Through the years I've used almost all of it to fix up the old buildings when I had hogs. Never used new lumber for many years because I had my own little lumber yard right there in the shed. The hogs are long gone, the buildings are pretty well fixed up and I need the storage space the lumber rack is taking up so today I cleaned it out. All that was left was 1X lumber that wasn't much good and was being eaten up by sawdust bugs or whatever you call them. But after I started hauling it out I was surprised how much was still there, must have been a couple of tons worth or so. It's all in a pile burning right now and when I look at it I think of all the labor it took to tear down the buildings, clean nails, haul, stack it and now my aching body is telling me how much work it was to haul it back out. Now it's going up in flames. I should have only saved the 2X framing lumber and burned the thin stuff right away, but, doggone it, it's there so why not? Jim

That's hard on my ears...

I once assisted in taking down several wooden corn cribs to salvage the lumber, only to find it in an ash pile, years later.

Thankfully my grandfather, older brother, and I, had a good time doing the work.

D.

Funny how things come full circle, I've done the same, demo lumber works pretty good for a lot of things, I still have a bunch of 2x4's in the yard, a stack of 2"x8"s, 3/4 plywood and a bunch of 6x6's, 2x8's and ply have been outside. Did a bunch of work, retained a lot of useable and good lumber, then never had to the time to use it. Just used a section of roof that was in a building part of an interior office in a auto shop, now the roof of a firewood shed, set with my 850 ford with loader and forks, took a few minutes, now why did I leave it for so long LOL ! Another year it would have been in the stove for heat, was easier to just use the darned thing and get some wood under a roof.

Only thing you might have done is put an ad in CL or similar and see if you could get rid of it that way, organized and per your liking, some people are too picky to deal with. I rarely see adds for good used lumber, free or low cost last long, the stuff moves around here. Few years back someone had a huge pile of 2x6x12's, free ad was gone in an hour.


When we got into it with the town about our old victorian style farmhouse, which was abandoned, I had salvaged a bunch of fir wainscoating and other lumber that only had clear varnish on it, they condemned it, we fought and won an injunction to stop, but again too busy, working out of town, also in college at night out of town, whole stack went with it, all the work, de-nailing, carefully taking it apart, was some nice stuff, wanted to finish a room with it. At least I got the fireplace mantle out with it, and the town paid a lot money for that pile of rubble !

When you need space thats taken by something you have not used, don't regret it, in years time it will be so far behind you, won't matter. I have some barn beams and smaller timbers in my cellar, used inside this house when built for finish aesthetics, rest is kinda taking up space, I could not bring myself to burn it, or dispose otherwise need to find a use for it, kind of cool to have parts of that old hay barn, but even this small stack, which has another stack of Douglas Fir 3x8'x16's and smaller, oh, and what about the stack of short 1x's in the corner, I love wood working, carpentry etc., lots of material on hand been around for many years too long.

Just now while eating supper I saw an ad in the local advertiser about barn boards for sale for .50 a foot, YOU REMOVE! Sheesh, I just burned up a gold mine!!! LOL. Jim

I was just going to say,you will need it tomorrow,or someone will ask for it ,, never fails! lol

Heck of it is, the storage space gained will be used for old wagons and stuff that really should go to auction. One of the items will be an old hay rack stacked with sawmill and planed lumber that needs a roof right now. Some of the wagons were in a cattle shed that I just remodeled into a shop so they're out under the stars now. One of them is the hay rack and another is a big wagon load of firewood. So there will be wood going back in, only on wheels. Jim

I have been taking lumber from the old farm house, the floor stringers are made from 2X14 rough cut lumber right at 80 years old.

Poof goes the weewee!

Looks like WeeWee is on his way out.!

Gene

Obviously too wet to burn.

You may have had power post beatles..if you did, you did the best thing by burning it...they are worse than termites...you have to almost soak the boards in a salt to get rid of beatles. I had made a china cabinet and some how they got in it. Real battle to get them out...I couldn't ever see getting them out of the house if they got in the walls.

Hauled home several FREE single-car garage sized wooden machinery crates that were (metric equivalent of 3/4" marine plywood) from overseas deck cargo shipments. Always going to use them for something-never did. Few years later hauled them to landfill and had to PAY to scrap them.
Not one of my better "scrounges"!